What happened on Saturday afternoon while watching India’s Rishabh Pant’s unorthodox but helluva entertaining batting display in the Fifth test match between India and Australia was kinda like listening to World Music for the first time, and then putting our own spin on things.
This was when in the music industry back in the nineties, and a couple of us in little old Hong Kong brought East-West music to the world.
I have Yoko Ono to thank for that and for giving me the opportunity in 2006 to put together an album of John Lennon outtakes and then Remix her and John’s “Give Peace A Chance” with an Asian flavour.
While watching this Fifth Test match between India and Australia and seeing young talent changing the face and LBWs of cricket, my mind had shifted to thinking about the future of music, especially Made In Hong Kong music.
Even after I leave, this city will always be home. It’s where I have invested much of my time and energy to keep pushing the creative envelope- creating the term “Canto Pop”, writing songs while still in school for Sam Hui, the Wynners, Faye Wong and Jacky Cheung.
After leaving EMI Music before it was sold to the private equity company Terra Firma, it was about creating the Happy Wednesday brand for the Hong Kong Jockey Club with the CEO of the HKJC
There was no need for anyone else as this only required common sense and some strategic thinking.
In between that, the creative process was kept alive by marrying the music of East-West through artists like India’s Asha Bhosle and percussionist Trilok Gurtu, and from the West, David Bowie, Robbie Williams, Placebo and John and Yoko.
Life in Hong Kong was never what it’s become- tedious, unoriginal and paralysingly boring.
At that time, working with me on much of this cross cultural music was longtime friend from my ad days Morton Wilson from Schtung Music in Hong Kong and Terry Lee/Terence Leong from Chyna House in Singapore whose band Urban XChange I had signed up to Universal Music.
It’s a pity that the head offices of EMI couldn’t see how this trailblazing music we were producing would work outside of Asia and through different mediums for these musical messages other than MTV and music shops like HMV.
There were muppets then just as there are muppets, now though back then, the muppets were corporate toadies immersed in creative accounting that would pay for their own businesses.
They weren’t tripping over themselves with mobile phones in hand and trying to be “influencers” with technology being The Idea and Instagram being the unholy grail.
That was then- a more creative time- and this is now and with everything that has happened and not happened in and to the world.
For me, the question is where is music going while streaming uphill and does it have a future in Hong Kong other than looking into another Mirror or designing a new Collar based on K-Pop?
I like the group from Hong Kong Andy Is Typing and artists Moon Tang and Gareth T, below.
As a side project, however, I would walk on glass to record an album of Pop standards in Mandarin with Faye Wong and perhaps including cameos by Robbie Williams and Norah Jones.
Guess the starting point to rebooting anything is asking if anyone cares enough to break free from the shackles that bind like Django did, and then ask if there’s good young original talent out there, and if there is, listen to what their music is saying.
If this music strikes the right chord, at least for me, it’s about bringing one’s experience and roller deck into the mix and presenting something brand new to the world that’s as exciting, exhilarating and original as watching Rishard Pant batting and the introduction of the Shanghai Tang brand created by the late David Tang.
Imagine something as newsworthy and entertaining and a game changer that is a music product with a sound and ‘look’ all its own that is Made In Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong government might not understand the relevance of this, but it’s not their job to understand the relevance of music on society.
It should be, but it appears that their priorities are pandas and pandanomics and creating a culture vulture generation along with various five year blueprints for making Hong Kong a financial hub.
Maybe they’re right.
For myself- a Hong Kong Belonger- like the city itself, something incredibly new and built around music being produced right here and now is akin to having a home run of global proportions.
It’s knowing that just more of the same from the tired old sausage factory will only continue to prematurely age Hong Kong.
Impossible is nothing and to be inspired enough to bring this NEWNESS to music through talent from Hong Kong- Chinese, Western and those “ethnic minorities” like myself- CAN lead to making many great things happen.
Much in Hong Kong has been terribly overlooked- and with huge opportunities gone and going astray as mentors, especially, are in short supply.
What’s needed is someone with a roller deck of brand names around the world to create who a Hong Kong dim sum mix- something tasty without recycling old ideas and force feeding erhus and Ding Dong songs on those who don’t want it.
They might not know it, but all of us in Hong Kong are looking for The Newness that leads to wellness and something to ignite individual chains of Hope and Inspiration.
Music is a brilliant and much needed magic elixir and antidote for lethargy and anxiety and depression.
The Hong Kong government should understand this, and in return, support those who are busy doing everything they can to bring about much needed change.
As Bob Dylan said, “He who’s not busy born is busy dyin’”.
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